## County ofVenango, Commonwealth ofPennsylvania Venango RegionalAirport www.llyfranklin.org 1560 Airport Road Franklin, PA 16323 814/432-5333

Mr. DennisJ. DeVany Chief, Essential Air Service Division Office ofAviationAnalysis U.S. Department ofTransportation 400 Seventh Street S.W. Room 6401 Washington, D.C. 20590

DearMr. DeVany; October 1 0, 2013 Airport Manager Otho C. Bell

I am writing regarding the air serviceprovided to Franklin/Oil City, Pennsylvaniaby Silver Airlines DbaUnited Express. As we have discussed inthe past, ourregion suffered deteriorating service byAirMidwest as the Pittsburghhub was downsized and serviceirregularities became commonplace. Eventually the airline simplywent outofbusiness with two (2) weeks notice in May of2008.

Youroffice worked hard to prepare bids for new service and Gulfstream, now Silver, began flying ourregion to the Cleveland hub in Septemberof2008. Ourcommunity shared a Small Community grant for marketing with several otherPennsylvania airports and we promoted our newair service with targeted and meaningful advertising as allowed bythe grant.

The airline, however, was unaccustomed to winter operations, indeed only one oftheirplanes had an anti skid braking system installed whichhampered their ability to land inmost winter runway conditions. Theseconditionsresulted in anaverage of22% cancellationsduring the months ofDecemberthru February for the next three (3) years and resulted infurther erosion of
ourcustomerbase that had already been shocked by the suddendeparture ofAirMidwest. The overflys ofFranklin and cancellationsnegated ouradvertising and marketing efforts and expenditures. The airport has expendedconsiderable funds inproviding ground transportation to passengers affected bythe airlines performance. Many ofthe flight irregularities fail to appearin the statistics whichfocus on "controllable"completion factors but the severity ofthepassenger impact offlight cancellations at an airport with only a few flights is far greaterthan at an airport that has more flights for rebooking. Our airport, therefore, tried to compensate by providing ground transpmtation to orfrom the hub for passengers affected byweather induced flight irregularities in an attempt to preserve ourcustomerbase. Howeveritis difficult to make a 2 hour cab ride as pleasant as flying and bythe time the customer arrives at the hub; their connections are inevitably gone, making for a very long and arduousjourney. Thisdoes nothelp generaterepeat business to say the least.The Order 2012-9-23 Selecting Silver Airways as the carrier for a 2 year period from October I, 2012 through September 30,2014 states onpage 4:

"Bradford and Franklin have fewer than I0 enplanements per day and Jamestown isjust over I0 at 10.7." "Silverand the communities,pat1icularly Bradford and Franklin, must attract additional passengers, thus increasing enplanements to meet the 10 enplanement statutory requirement in order for them to remain eligible to continue receiving EAS after FY 2013, i.e. after September 30, 2013".--------- Continuing on page 5; the order futiher it states, "The Depatiment fully expects that the communities and Silver will work together to ensure that the subsidy per passenger is below $200."
Venango Regional Airport officials have attempted to work with SilverAirways in marketing the air service to increase passenger traffic and there has been limited response and no participation from Silver Airways. I actually was even reprimanded by the airline management for including their phone number in a local newspaper ad. The Airport has not expected the carrier to share financially in marketing and advertising efforts but would have appreciated their participation in web and email campaigns, similar to those they do in Florida, and some pat1icipation in direct contact with businesses through local Chamber ofCommerce events and the like. This has not happened. Emails and messages have gone unanswered and the marketing and promotional effort has been shouldered unilaterallyby the Airpot1.

I was privileged to accompany the Bradford Airport Manager, Tom Frungillo, to Washington, D.C. to meet with you and Mr. Schlemmer back in March of this year. We expressed our concerns at that time. We then traveled to the Fort Lauderdale Headquatiers ofSilver and met with some oftheir staff, hoping to build a cooperative effort to work on ways to improve our enplanements. A conference call with Bradford, Franklin and Silver in late August proved hopeful when they produced a plan for marketing using email and Google ad words. The plan
was emailed to the airports on August 22"d and we were to respond by sending our email lists to the airline for incorporation into this marketing effot1. The emails lists from our area were sent
on August 

### 23'd. As ofthis writing, nothing has progressed with this plan. Unfotiunately the relationship with Silverhas not increased passengertraffic. The airline appears to have "written off" Franklin/Oil City. The number one reason prospective passengers give for not trying to fly from Franklin is "dependability". There appeared to be hope for the future in a press release from Silver Aitways on June 28111 ofthis year wherein they state that the departure from the Montana markets will allow them to focus on the Cleveland EAS markets. Our Community saw this as solving the dependability issues but we have subsequently become alarmed at the reduction in their B1900 fleet, which will hamper both aircraft and crew availability. We have information and are concerned that the carrier may not be interested in bidding again on air service to our community even ifwe should somehow be able to remain eligible for the program and futiher deterioration ofthe service reliability will seal our fate and all but eliminate any chance at attracting air service.The airline has recently had an infusion ofmanagement talent with industry experience and the past several weeks have seen on time operations. We remain hopeful, as always, and the airport continues to work to promote and advertise our air service but the recent improvements may be too late to save it. We steadfastly maintain that service to the United Airlines Cleveland hub is a very good option for us, if properly served, but recognize that reliable service to Pittsburgh would be also. This community needs dependable air service to help rebuild a wounded economy.
On behalfofthe Oil Heritage Region, served by the Venango Regional Airpot1; I ask that you consider our issues regarding the apparent reluctance ofSilver Airways to work within the spirit ofthe order 

### 2012

- 9 - 

### 23 and we request a chance at and consideration ofa waiverrequest now or in the future to secure an airline who will work with the airport and community in delivering adequate air service, marketing the air service and increasepassengertraffic.

Respectfully submitted;

# ~~~_? Otho C. Bell

Cc: SenatorRobet1 Casey Representative G.T. Thompson Travis C1u·ist, SilverAirways Commissioners, County ofVenango Mayor, Oil City, PA Mayor, Franklin, PA File